This is a painting of my old dog, Shanzi, and probably one of my favorite paintings to date. I absolutely love how it turned out and wouldn’t change a thing. I feel like doing the 30 in 30 challenge has really paid off in this painting. This isn’t entirely an original painting though since it’s the second time I’ve painted this image.
Last year, one of my favorite paintings I had painted back in 2016 was damaged. I attempted to fix it with a patch, but I’m by no means a skilled restorer. In fact, I’m a pretty lousy restorer. The patch didn’t look very good and the damage was right in the middle. There was no way to avoid it, so I decided to repaint it.
It has been about a year and a half since I painted the original. In that time, I’ve completed 77 paintings and really grown as an artist. My initial plan was to use the old painting as the reference to the new one along side the original reference photo. I thought that since I loved the painting I would just recreate it exactly. It didn’t work out the way I thought it would though.
Once I started the new painting I saw all of the mistakes I made in the original, and there were many. For the most part, the proportions were off, but the mouth and nose were also wrong. So I scrapped my plan to use the painting as a reference and relied on the photo. Although, I used the painting as a reference for the neck since I like how it turned out. In the photo there is another collar above the green collar that covers up most of the neck so I had to make up what it would have looked like without it.
I legitimately thought the original was among my best paintings for a long time. And I suppose it was for a while. Luckily, I’ve improved. I’m much, much better at drawing these days. In another year and a half, I’ll probably be even better. My husband now jokingly says he did me a favor by damaging the original. Otherwise I wouldn’t have painted it again. When he saw both completed paintings together, he said “No offense, but the second one makes the first one look like crap.” 🙂 I love his honesty.
There are a few things I really do like about the old painting though. I thought I did a nice job on the fur texture and the neck turned out nice considering I made it up. The eye was done well and the yellow mixing into the darker red below on the top of the head is one of my favorite parts. Overall, this is a decent painting for my skill level at the time.
In the end, I’m actually not upset that the original painting was damaged. If it hadn’t been, I never would have painted this painting again and been able to see so clearly how much I have improved over the last year and a half. It has really opened my eyes to some of my older work that I thought was great, but could in reality be improved upon.
In a small way, improving sucks. I don’t like a lot of my older artwork now. Even art from 6 months ago. I’ve heard of a lot of artists disliking their older art and didn’t really understand it until now. All of my previous older art was from around 10 years ago and was distant from me and so of course I wouldn’t like it. I was a different person 10 years ago. It is a different thing entirely, to dislike something I had so recently completed, loved, and was the height of my skill.
Really nice work Amber, your personal experience of “improvements” and growth have inspired me to want to paint every day…now if only I could actually do it! 🙂 thanks for posting ~
Wow, thank you! Painting every day isn’t easy. I’ve been taking too many days off lately, but the payoff is definitely worth it.
The old one isn’t bad. The new one has more presence, and a better appreciation of volume and atmosphere. Sometimes I do something like the first one, don’t like it, and then start over and something like the second one may arrive – one step forward, two steps back! Great work!
Thank you.
Both are very nice paintings, but the second one just breathes life. It’s gorgeous. Every painting you do is so beautiful. I love how you accentuate highlights and light. Really eye-catching.
Thank you very much! 🙂